Just Another Day
by Ralenger
Summary: Before the outbreak of war, we follow an average day in the life of a certain Autobot communications expert. Written for the first monthly writing challenge over at the Autobot City Forums.


Just Another Day.

An alarm sounded, silent to all but Hubcap, whose system it was embedded into. He groaned and sat up wearily, raising a hand to his sluggish head. The light suffusing the room glared harshly against his optics as he tried to pick out the shapes around him against the blur. It was difficult; sharp edges ran into a soft mash of lines and shadows, twisting into new, unknown forms. He blanked out his optics, swung his legs off the recharge berth and climbed unsteadily to his feet.

This was his own apartment, had been for thousands of years, so he was able to effortlessly navigate the room without the input from his optics. His mind fuzzy, he checked the alarm, grimacing as he realised that it was time to leave for work. Hadn't he just come from there? Oh, right.

He'd pulled a double shift the previous cycle, and stayed on long after the end of that one too. In the end he'd been late to get into his off-line cycle, the state needed by most Cybertronians in order to process and organise the information absorbed during their on-line state. So he'd absorbed an excess of information and, to top that off, had not given himself enough time to process it, so his systems were still running, trying to organise the information while _at the same time_ trying to boot him into on-line mode. It wasn't working terribly well but, in time, he knew that his conscious operations would take priority and postpone the process-organise cycle. Until then, however, he had to struggle, fight his own body, in order to simply operate.

Stumbling, he reached out to where he knew the wall would be and steadied himself with a sigh. He reactivated his optics, there was already an improvement, he noticed, which was good because, although he knew his way to work almost as well as he knew his apartment, making his way there with darkened optics was bound to draw notice and attract comment. No, best to suffer the light, at least until he was safely ensconced in the Comms Centre. The thought of the dim safety of the Tower in his mind, he reached for the door control.

The light that seared into his tender optics as he stepped out into the streets of Iacon forced him to hesitate, almost rocking back a step. The golden glow that emanated from all the surfaces surrounding him was, of course, far worse then the subdued (had he really thought it harsh?) lighting in his personal residence. The tempting impulse to simply turn straight back around tugged mercilessly at his mind, the urge to simply off-line again until such time as his systems finished their task and turn up for work late was rather strong. With a weary shake of his head, however, he dismissed the notion; he'd soon recover from this fatigue and, besides, he had other reasons than simply his job to turn up.

His job was important though. He was the administrator for the Comms Tower here in Iacon, an integral part of the global Information Hub, the planet-wide repository of information, and, more importantly, the primary communications centre for the city. Everything transmitted between the interior of the city and the planet around it was either transmitted through _or monitored by_ this tower. That was something that was kept extremely quiet by the city officials, the fact that any transmissions made on personal radios were, unless great pains were taken, recorded and archived. Indeed, who would ever have even believed that in peaceful, benevolent Iacon there was almost no privacy? Iacon, City of Secrets.

And he was in charge, with access to everything.

The Cap of the Hub, he liked to joke.

He started as he heard a voice calling his name, glancing about to the direction that, as far as he could tell, the sound had come from, only to be met again with a bright blur, with barely the suggestion of a shape. Grinning nonetheless, he waved and cried out a boisterous greeting even as he hurried off before whoever it was came close enough to see his condition. However, his luck there was poor as, at the Transit station, the other mech caught up with him. He slowed reluctantly, he'd be going nowhere until the car came through, and half-turned to see this 'friend' as best as he could.

The blue smudge that his gaze fell upon was, despite the lack of detail, oddly familiar. So it was actually someone he knew then, not just some fellow traveller on the platform, although that had only been a remote hope. He made an effort to force a wide smile and to look bright and cheerful but, as his current run of luck would have it, the mech was one who, when his mind wasn't wandering, had a keen optic for detail.

"Hey, you okay?" the mech asked, seemingly concerned.

"Yeah Skids, I'm fine," Hubcap replied, the weariness he was trying to mask sounding clearly in his voice.

Great, Skids.

Skids had the fastest process-organise of any Transformer that Hubcap had ever met. He'd never seen the scientist get tired, didn't even know if he needed to off-line. It was an irksome trait, but nevertheless he considered Skids a close friend; he was honest, friendly… and his thirst for knowledge and capacity for information came in very useful.

"You don't look it," was Skid's reply. Fortunately, Hubcap had an excuse that he knew Skids would accept without question and it just happened to be true, as well.

"Yeah, I got caught up in some of the records after my shift ended last end-cycle, didn't manage to get off-line until late."

Skids nodded understandingly, or rather, his head moved up and down, through the haze Hubcap could only assume it was an understanding nod from his knowledge of the scientist. Just then the transit car finally decided to put in an appearance, late as usual. _Great_, Hubcap thought, _where were you a breem ago?_

Hubcap climbed into the waiting car and tapped his destination code into the terminal, he was mildly surprised to see Skids climbing into the car alongside him; this wasn't normally Skids' route.

"So what are you up to this cycle?" Hubcap asked, partially to make sure that Skids had intended to actually use this car, he could often get quite disconnected with the world in general.

"We've organised another presentation to the High Council to highlight our concerns about the energy situation," Skids replied.

Hubcap nodded, needing no further explanation of the matter as it was something that they'd discussed on several occasions. However, he could tell by the increasingly distant expression on Skids' faceplate that he was due to hear about it again. Still, he listened anyway, in case something new was let slip.

The simple matter was this: the power running through the walls, flowing through micro-circuits mostly designed for no other purpose, was the source of the 'golden' effect that the inhabitants were so proud of, and extremely wasteful. Skids was part of a group of scientists trying to raise awareness and convince the high council to cease this practice, but to little avail. Despite the misgivings of a handful of members, the council refused to acknowledge that the energy resources of the planet may be finite, or conceive of a time when they may be exhausted. They could always look outwards for a new source, they said.

It was a short-sighted and reckless approach, Hubcap thought, and its reason was more likely based on pride than on any real consideration.

Not all of the circuits needed to be deactivated of course, in fact some of them were essential; power conduits supplying energy around the city, even the planet, but the majority were just... decoration.

Hubcap frowned slightly as a thought occurred to him. For a moment he raised one hand to tap at his chin as he mulled the idea over. Finally he turned towards Skids.

"Do you think public awareness would help?"

Skids hesitated, furrowed his brow and glanced around him in confusion, his optics finally falling on Hubcap as the source of the interruption? "I'm sorry?"

"Public awareness," Hubcap repeated patiently. "If you like I could arrange you some airtime on the network, let you state your case to the population as a whole."

Skids tilted his head slightly, turning the matter over in his mind. "Personally, I think that the population in general would react in a similar way to the Council." He grinned wryly, continuing, "People don't always want what's best for them. But I'll bring the matter up with the others, and see what they think of it. It's kind of you to offer, though."

Hubcap shrugged one shoulder lightly, dismissing it casually. "It's nothing really, just trying to help a good cause." And further develop his own good reputation, but that was another matter entirely. Honestly.

Skids then resumed his interrupted speech. At this point Hubcap came to suspect that this was the presentation that Skids had planned for the Council, and he was getting an unintended preview of it. With a small smile he tuned half an audio to his friend, while letting the rest of his attention drift as the car passed quickly through the transparent tubes.

As the car reached his stop, he climbed quickly out onto the platform and, as he transformed into his hovercar form, wondered idly what it was Skids had approached him about in the first place.

There were several roadways between this transit station and the Tower, which he traversed as quickly as he dared, which was admittedly more slowly than normal, due to his lingering sluggishness. The early-cycle traffic was clearing, however, and he managed to reach the Tower with little difficulty. As he transformed and walked towards the main doorway, he was pleased to note that his sight was nearly back to normal, with only a slight blurring that faded in and out even as he walked. He placed a palm to the security scanner and the door slid open, registering him as present and, thankfully, on time.

It was vital for him to be on time.

To turn up late would only cause comment, which would lead to notice and, with notice, the seeds of doubt would be sown. Doubt in his reliability.

Hubcap had a reputation for reliability; it was something he'd taken great care and pains to foster. Something he'd had to foster, after what had happened to the _old_ administrator.

It had started slowly, with a record disappearing here and there, only to turn up in a similar, but significantly different location than it ought to be, if it turned up at all. This had been attributed to the occasional glitch in the system, computer error rather than user. But the problem didn't end there, it escalated, beginning with a recording of the first off-world shuttle launch playing over a live transmission of the state games, moving on to a number of careless system accesses that resulted in minor damage,and culminating in a total systems crash that took Iacon off the Hub for an entire cycle.

The flow of information stopped, and with it the profits of all the inhabitants of the city whose profits relied on that flow, ad people often didn't realise how valuable information could be. Their complaints soon deafened the receptors of the city officials, inspiring them to seek a cause for the crash and, ultimately, a scapegoat upon which to place the blame.

They had found one in the form of the then-current administrator; a previously meticulous and now extremely confused mech who was pin-pointed as the source of the system breakdown and, on further inquiries, the other varied and sundry errors that had come to plague the tower. Everything was suddenly laid bare, all the minute problems, ranging from the misplaced files (carefully edited to ensure no mention of the covert recordings was made, of course) to the crossed feeds to the system crash, all arranged in a perfectly visible trail. All building up from a few scattered errors into a multitude, cascading like an energon-fall from one inexorable step to another, until the matter simply could not be avoided. Negligence, incompetence.

Oh, there had been regretful looks, shaking heads, voices muttering 'system decay' or, by those more cynical, 'sloppy, _lazy_!' and, in the end, the decision had been made, steps had been taken and the administrator had been retired, placed in a minor post at an inconsequential repeating station well out of the way of anyone who might care to notice. Well-paid of course, they couldn't risk him being tempted to discuss the covert files, but a world away from his old position of responsibility and power.

And Hubcap's secret? It was his doing. All of it. Each carefully misplaced file, each edited record of the damaging system accesses, the final crash. Everything was done by his hand. And it had worked.

Because, afterwards, Hubcap had been appointed to the post, his own record being flawless both at the time and as matters currently stood. But after what had happened with the previous administrator, whose record had once been as impressive as Hubcap's own, the officials had taken a good deal more notice; no repeat was to be tolerated. Any deviation now, any signs of failure, and more attention would fall on him, and more and even more until, one day, they'd see his _other_ little secret.

That had been almost a deca-vorn ago, now, and he had more than lived up to the trust placed in him and, with his top-level access to the Information Hub, he'd been perfectly placed to instigate his reason for it, his little 'on the side' business.

His face still fixed in a wide grin, he lowered himself into the controller's seat, tapping his code into the main terminal in order to activate the chamber. Around him screens powered up and flickered into life, feeding reports to the rooms occupant on any number of matters; the recent results in the state games, traffic reports from around the city, a newscast by the city's representative, gossip about flying robots, the latest entertainment reviews, and so on and so forth.

Hubcap glanced around quickly at the screens – There was more here than he could comprehend, but it wasn't his job to understand it, just to make sure it keeps flowing, uninterrupted.

Raising his hand to one side of his head, he gently pulled a cable from its mount in his helmet and connected it to a port in the system interface terminal that was mounted above the chair.

All seemed to be running smoothly so, with a brief acknowledgement, he accepted control from the sub-Administrator and then, once secure in the knowledge that he had sole control of the Tower, started his _real_ job.

The thing most people didn't seem to realise is: information has value. Not just government secrets and facts, or research and development or celebrity gossip. Some people are simply interested to know who's buying what, and where to find it, or where a certain person was seen leaving. Harmless little facts which could prove to be oh-so profitable, and that was just the day-to-day information. Some of the covert records could be _priceless_.

Hubcap was an information dealer, the only one to have top-level access to the Information Hub, and that suited him just fine.

Hubcap noted a request for information regarding possible energy stores/warehouses around the planet, it was anonymous but that was common. He regarded the request thoughtfully for a moment before turning to another console and punching up a list of the information on his private terminal.

_It's harmless enough,_ he thought with a smile.

He encrypted the information and transmitted it to the customer, taking a moment to note the authorisation of the payment transfer before transmitting the encryption key and promptly forgetting it and moving on to the next request.

Another deal done and another profit made.

After all, where was the harm?


End file.
